Life After Death/Issue 12
"Attention everyone," Alvin said as everyone circled around him. "We have a new member in our community, Trish." Alvin held his hands out in the direction of Trish, who stood next to him and smiled. "We found her rooting through the forest, so she's pretty hungry. Jessica, could you whip something up quickly, please?" "Sure thing," the blonde woman said as she walked over to the dining area. "You can just follow her, Trish, she'll get you something. Now, as for the rest of you, we need to start kicking it into overdrive in regards to the progress on the wall-" At the dining area, Trish and two other people followed Jessica to the table. "Here you go, darlin'," Jessica said as she pointed to the edge of the seat for Trish to sit. Jessica walked over to the fire pit and started stirring something in the pot. "This will just take a minute, need to heat up our lunch for ya'." Trish looked to her right, where she saw Brandon and Sarah standing, observing. "Do you need any help, Jessica?" Brandon asked with a smile. "No, I got it dear, you just sit back. You've done a lot for me lately, you deserve some time to relax." "Oh, well, thank you." Brandon sat down across the table from Trish. "Hello, I'm Brandon." "Nice to meet you," Trish said sheepishly. Brandon held his hand out, but Trish just stared at it. Embarrassed, Brandon quickly pulled his hand away. "So...where did you come from?" "I just wandered around." "You weren't with any groups?" "No. I was with my sister for a bit, but she..." "Oh, I'm so sorry." "No, it's fine, it was over a month ago. At least...I think it was. Kind of lost track of what day it is. Kind of meaningless." "Yeah, not much point to that nowadays. A day is just a day." The conversation abruptly turned to silence. The two of them sat there as Jessica cooked and Terry stood beside them. "Here you go, sweetie," Jessica said as she put a bowl of vegetable soup in front of Trish. "Oh, I don't like carrots," Trish said as she looked back at Jessica. "Well, that's too bad," Terry said in an intimidating tone. "You're going to have to eat them." "I can take them out for her," Brandon offered. "No." "Why?" "Because, she has to learn to deal with what she doesn't like." "But...it's just food. It's not that big of a deal." "Brandon, I suggest you shut the fuck up before I call Alvin over." "Why? Because I'm trying to be a nice guy?" "Because you're being a disobeyant brat. You're already at the line, one more step and-" "What's going on here?" Alvin said as he walked up behind Terry. ---- "I was just, uh-" Devon started to say as Alvin cut him off. "Cut the crap, Devon. We know what you're doing here." "What I'm doing? What about what you're doing?" "Pardon me?" "You heard me. Killing these people and turning them into these...things, all because they broke a rule. You people are sick. You're monsters compared to these flesh-eating corpses." "Not only have you committed treason against this community, but you are now speaking out against our rules. I'm afraid there will be-" "Consequences." Devon and Alvin said simultaneously. "Go ahead, kill me. Fucking kill me." Alvin passed his pistol back to Terry, and put his left hand out on Devon's shoulder, pushing him up against the table. Using his other hand, Alvin grabbed Devon's right hand, and snapped his fingers backwards. "AH FUCK!" Devon yelled in agony. Alvin continued by bending them to the side. He let go, leaving Devon's hand in a jumble and him in extreme pain. He then placed his hand on Devon's other shoulder, and pushed his head against the wall. "Now, you're going to tell me when your group is going to arrive here." "Wait...how do you...?" Devon asked in the midst crying and breathing heavily. "The tire tracks in the forest, the piece of fabric we found and hole in your jeans. It's pretty obvious. Now, tell me." "Or...what?" "I break the rest of your fingers." "Okay, fine. I'll tell you..." "Well?" Devon tried to catch his breath, giving him a few seconds to think. "They'll be at the back wall at the crack of dawn. They only have a few guns...you could probably pick them off before they even get out of their car." Alvin let go of Devon, letting him drop to the floor. He turned around and faced his three shocked and shaken comrades. "Terry, lock the doors, he can wait here while we have our...fun." Alvin walked over to the weapon table and grabbed all the guns. He walked up the stairs with them as Sarah and Jon hesitantly followed. Terry stood there for a moment, before walking down the stairs and over to the door. He opened it, stepped outside, pulled out a set of keys from his pocket, and locked the handle. He walked in, letting the door shut behind him. As he walked past Devon, he looked down with a smirk. Terry walked up the stairs, into the darkness, and out the main door. When the door shut, Devon completely collapsed, and burst into hysteric laughter that soon turned into tears of pain. He looked down at his now purple hand, his fingers bent every which way. He grasped them with his other hand, which caused a sting. He let his body fall to the ground one more time, giving in to the weakness and pain. ---- "I was-" Brandon tried to say before Terry interrupted. "He's speaking out against our rules. The new girl doesn't like carrots, but she can't just waste food like that. Brandon seems to think otherwise." "I see..." Alvin said. "Now, Brandon, is this true? Don't lie." "Yes," he admitted. "Well, you've already spoken out a number of times recently. If you apologize for this, I may reconsider what I'm about to do." "Apologize? For trying to do something nice? Who said we have to throw the carrots away?" "Brandon, that isn't the point. Do you apologize?" "No." "I was hoping you wouldn't say that..." All of a sudden, Terry sprang behind Brandon and grabbed his arms, holding them behind his back. "Take him to the basement," Alvin said as Brandon tried to struggle free. Terry walked off with him to the building full of rotters as Alvin walked up to Trish. "I'm sorry you had to witness this. Now, you should eat up, you need the energy." ---- At the apartment, the group gathered in the kitchen. "We need a way to distract them when we break through the walls," Eric said. "I think I know something that would help," Drake announced. "What?" "I took chemistry for a bit, took some extra practice outside of school with my teacher, Mr. White. He was really cool, he showed me how to make a bunch of things...smoke bombs being one." "No fucking kidding?" Bill asked. "You really know how to make smoke bombs?" "Yeah, I just need a few ingredients...let me think for a second...it was sugar, saltpeter, aluminum foil, and a pan or something we can put it all on." Andre opened up a small cupboard above an old stove and pulled out a box of sugar. Gregory opened up a column of drawers one by one until he found one full of boxes of saran wrap, plastic bags, and aluminum foil. Andre bent down and opened up the stove drawer and pulled out a cookie sheet. The two men placed their objects on the counter. "Alright, that's good, now all we need is saltpeter..." Drake said as he looked around the kitchen. The group spent the next twenty minutes searching every cupboard, drawer, and pantry in the apartment, but they couldn't find any. They even went around to all the other apartments, but came out empty-handed. "Well, shit," Drake said. "What are we going to do?" Emily asked. "Well, what I'm looking for is potassium nitrate." Everyone looked at Drake with a blank stare. "Oh, sorry, too nerdy for you all to understand. Well, I think we can find what we need in a cold pack and sodium-free salt." "We'll start checking." Everyone scattered around looking for those two ingredients. Drake checked the room next door, and looked in the freezer. He pulled out a small bag that said "Instant Cold Pack" on it. He looked down and saw "ammonium nitrate". "This is it," he said to himself and started heading back to the others. On his way back, he ran into Brie, who had a container of "NoSalt" in her hand. "Found the sodium-free salt," she said. "Great, I found the cold pack. Could you tell everyone else to come back?" "Sure thing." After a minute, the group had all returned to the kitchen. "One last thing," Drake said as he opened a pantry. He grabbed a coffee filter from the shelf, and shut it. The group watched as he started pouring the ingredients into measuring cups and mixed them together. After about twenty minutes, he took the mixture, that he had now poured into a large, glass container, outside and set it on the ground. "It's pretty cool out right now, this should crystallize the solution. We'll have to check it every couple of minutes." When the solution had crystallized, Drake took it inside. "Alright, now to create the smoke bombs." He poured some of the potassium nitrate he made onto the cookie sheet, then poured some sugar on, making sure there was significantly less. He pulled out a match book, and handed it to Andre. "Could you heat this for me?" Drake asked as he lifted the cookie sheet into the air. Andre lit a match and held it under the pan. Bill and Eric both grabbed a match, as well, and did the same. "Could someone pass me a spoon, please?" Morgan opened up a drawer and pulled out a spoon, handing it to Drake. He starred to stir the mixture as the other three men heated it from the bottom. After a few minutes, it started melt. A few more minutes passed, and the ingredients were liquefied. "Alright, that's good," Drake said as the three men moved their matches away and he placed the cookie sheet back on the counter. He grabbed the aluminum foil and ripped off a large piece, took the cookie sheet, and started pouring it onto the aluminum in small circles. "Okay, we just let this cool, and then we have our smoke bombs." "You're sure this will work?" Dolph asked. "Pretty damn sure, we can test it after to see if they do." "And if they don't?" "Then we just wasted a few hours for nothing." ---- After several hours, as the sun started to rise in the sky, Alvin's men dotted the walls. They prepared for what was to come, eagerly awaiting Eric to drive up so they can wipe them out. "Any sign?" Sarah asked Pablo as she walked over to him. "No, not yet," he replied. "Do you think they're even showing up?" "I don't know, man." "What if that kid was lying? What if they decided to abandon him here. What if...they have more people than they claim?" "Like I said, I don't know. All I know is I'm supposed to be standing right here and not do anything that will make Alvin mad. You should go back to your post in case those dirtbags show up." "Right." Sarah walked back to the right, toward the building with the rotters inside. Pablo stood on the wall between the forest and the main wall, scouting the forest to see any movement. After a few hours, there was still no sign. Sarah, Frank, and several other people talked to Alvin in the middle of the community. "Look, we need to go," Sarah informed Alvin. "It's almost the evening, they didn't show up. If we're going to work on the wall, we need to go now." "They could still be coming," Alvin said. "We need all the people we can." "It's a small group, you can handle ten less people. "Alright, go, I'll send Terry after you if anything goes south." "Okay." The ten people piled into two small cars that were parked near the main gate, opposite the rotter building. Pablo walked over and climbed half way down the ladder, hopping inside the bus. Pulling keys out of his pocket, he started the bus, and backed it up so the group could go through. ---- Eric stood by the truck in the forest, smoking a cigarette. He took the last puff, dropped it, and stepped on it. "Okay, are we ready for this?" he asked, and everyone else nodded. "This is going to be dangerous. We might not all make it out, and I want to let you all know now that everything...everything you do in there will be appreciated. If you are unfortunate enough not to walk out of here alive, I want you to know that you will be dearly missed." Morgan and Drake looked at each other with a look of uncertainty. "I know you're all nervous, scared, but you have to remember one thing: if you play your part, if you do what needs to be done, we will survive. You screw up, you put us all at risk. We need to keep a level head and a clear mind. Got it?" "Got it," everyone else said. "Good. Now, we need to approach with caution. They've got guards stationed all over the wall, I don't know what happened in there...but I think they expected us. Devon might be in danger, and we need to find him as soon as we step foot in there. I refuse to leave the kid behind. Drake's smoke bombs work, so we have some cover, but it doesn't protect us from bullets, so we need to be careful. Now, come on. Stick low to the ground, we'll approach the wall through here. There's a blind spot at the edge of the forest, but it's a small blind spot. One wrong step and we get caught. Are you guys ready?" Everyone nodded. "Alright, let's go." The group all crouched down and shuffled across the ground. Most of them were armed with guns, save for Morgan who had her bow with her. The group reached the edge of the forest, which was about five feet away from the wall. "Wait," Eric whispered. He looked up on the wall and could see Pablo turned around. He gestured for everyone to step back. "Morgan...can you take him?" "I think so," she said. She took an arrow out and readied it on her bow. She stepped out from behind the trees and fired. The arrow went straight into Pablo's throat, causing him to fall over the wall. "I got this son of a bitch," Dolph said as he pulled out his crowbar. He walked out of the forest, still somewhat crouching, and stopped when he reached Pablo. He pulled his arm back, and slammed his crowbar into Pablo's face. He did this several more times until his face was completely bashed in to the point of it being unrecognizable. "Alright, we have a way in," Eric said. "Let's go." Cast * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (Flashback) * (Flashback) * (Flashback) * (Flashback) Deaths *Pablo Trivia *Last appearance of .